(June 28, 2016) The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently published FCC 16-74 “Memorandum Opinion and Order on Reconsideration” (released June 15, 2016), which extends the deadline for all laboratories who perform Certification and Declaration of Conformity (DoC) testing per the FCC rules to be accredited to ISO/IEC 17025. The previous deadline to become accredited was set at July 13, 2016, but the FCC has now extended this for an additional one-year period – until July 13, 2017. As directed within publication 16-74, the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) has now also released a revised version of its Knowledge Database (KDB) publication “974614 D01 – Accredited Testing Laboratory Program Roles and Responsibilities” (v04).
For the first time in history, this KDB now provides a procedure for laboratories that are located in countries that do not have a government-to-government MRA with the United States (i.e. APEC TEL MRA) to become designated as accredited (recognized) test firms with the FCC. The revised KDB indicates that labs in non-MRA countries “may use an accrediting body that the FCC has recognized for performing accreditation assessments within that specific country”.
Under these revised procedures, A2LA has now submitted its application to the FCC in order to seek recognition to accredit laboratories in the following non-MRA countries: People’s Republic of China, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Mexico.
A2LA urges all interested laboratories to begin the accreditation process as soon as possible in order to avoid delays and the risk of missing the FCC’s new deadline.
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